


SubAwake

by Kailean



Category: I Feel Sick, Invader Zim, Johnny the Homicidal Maniac, Squee - Fandom
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alien Biology, Aliens, Bisexuality, Cambions, Chaos Theory, Demons, Dysfunctional Family, F/F, F/M, Friendship, Friendship/Love, Gen, M/M, Magical Realism, Mental Health Issues, Multi, Mythical Beings & Creatures, Nephilim, Other, Paranormal, Paranormal Investigators, Queer Themes, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Science Fiction, Witches, Xenophilia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-15
Updated: 2014-04-15
Packaged: 2018-01-19 10:58:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1466944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kailean/pseuds/Kailean
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After spending years in the D.H.M.I., Squee is finally released. Though his life has become something close to normal, it starts to take a familiar turn for the weird when his old teddy is returned. When the problem turns out to be much bigger than just his own, can he and friends solve it before it's too late? This is largely inspired by the poems of William Blake. This story is rated M for violence and sexuality/sexual implications (but no actual sex scenes).</p><p>***Originally Published as "Sublime Awakenings" on FF.net in 2007. This is going to be a rewrite.***</p><p>Disclaimer: Squee, JTHM, I Feel Sick and Invader Zim characters belong to Jhonen Vasquez. I don't own them, and I make no money from the writing of this story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	SubAwake

**Prologue**

Rita Fernadez let out a deep sigh as she allowed her body to collapse underneath her into a chair with metal legs and a hard pink plastic seat. The tension in her body seeped out through her pores when she kicked off her worn, off-white tennis shoes under the rounded table that her elbows came to rest on. Lethargically, she sipped in vain from a can of Diet Poop, hoping that the caffeine it contained would halt the numb feeling from spreading further through her brain, though she could already tell by the drooping of her eyelids that she'd need to set the alarm on her cell phone again. Pain shot through her arm as fingers twisted plump skin; enough pain to buy her a few more minutes, during which she pulled out her phone and did what she had to do, by now a well-practiced routine.  
  
Already she was dreading when her break would end and she would have to drag herself back into the halls of The Defective Head Meat Institute and do all the dirty work for the actual nurses, who were paid in more money and more respect, mostly for 'supervising' and gossiping. She worked in the southeast campus, amply named The Crazy House For Boys, which had the highest bite rate of the whole institute, and reminded her of the two boys that she had at home. It was tiring work, even more so emotionally than physically. This fact was compounded by another one: in addition to her two boys, Rita also had a husband laid off from work and two jobs of her own that barely paid the bills at their low-end apartment.  
  
Her routine had resulted in an inevitable, persistent exhaustion that attempted to collect on her sleep deficit whenever her mind was given even the briefest of reprieves from immediate tasks. This did no wonders for her life long sleep-walking and night terrors at home, but the most obvious collections took place during breaks, like now. She could hear a group of nurses and a few assistants like herself giggling across the room, whispering about how she must be on drugs, as she pushed her Diet Poop away and lay her head across her folded arms. She told herself that it didn't matter what those perras thought, not even if they passed it up the ladder. She wasn't going to be failing any drug tests. She had neither the time nor the energy to jeopardize her jobs with that shit. Ironically, that fact was more likely to land her family on the streets than a little recreational drug use might because of the less obvious collections that were happening more and more frequently when she was awake: reading, watching tv, having a full blown conversation. Not much was off limits now, and eventually she was going to make a mistake when it mattered.  
  
That prospect terrified her, but lately there was something even worse. When she was in the all too familiar fuzzy state between wakefulness and sleep, beneath the buzz of the TV in the corner of the break room, the clinking from the venting machines and the mummer of meaningless conversations all around, there was something else, and that something knew her name. It called to her in a distant, raspy whisper that held a cold, metallic echo. A shiver crept down her back on thin, spindly legs as the sound came again, barely distinguishable at first, an accumulation of background noises whose whole was more than the sum of its parts. Minutes passed in silence and Rita let herself relax again, closing her eyes and letting her mind wonder into the REM waiting just behind the veil of consciousness.  
  
The sound of a scuffle in the hall was a mild distraction, but positioning her ears against her right upper arm and left hand shut it out enough, until a wail rose above the commotion to pierce through her blockade. The recognition was instant, even in her dazed state, and had Rita's head, followed by her body, snapping up, alert to the voice that sounded so much like her youngest son.  
  
"Stop," the voice said. "Don't touch me! I just came here to see my mom! Mom! Mom!"  
  
The urgency toward the end had her running, slamming through the thick, metal door with little thought to her protesting shoulder. "Luis," she screamed at the retreating figures, one a buff orderly-type that she had never seen before and the other a boy the size of her baby, Lucho, who had just turned seven. He was jerked forward by the iron grip that the man had on his left arm, his right hand swinging a tattered, old teddy bear, but as they turned the corner she saw his tear-streaked, bruised face and knew that it wasn't just the size and the voice that matched. She knew, was used to the fact, that sometimes accidents, and 'accidents', happened when some of the more feisty patients resisted. It always caused a nauseated twisting in her stomach, but noting like this. This was her baby, and he did not belong here!  
  
"Wait!" Rita rounded the corner as fast as she could, only to see both of them far ahead, and then the man pulled Luis into the stairwell. "You, you pendejo! That's my son!" Her voice was loud enough to wake anyone in the ward who wasn't in a sound proof cell, but the orderly either didn't hear or didn't care. Hot rage filled her veins and she shot through the hallway like a lead bullet, faster than she had known she was capable of. When she made it to the stairs, she took them two at a time, hearing her son continue to struggle a few stories down. They were going to the basement: the basement where there was nothing but filing and storage.  
  
"Stop! Stop, or I'm calling the police!" The orderly paid her no mind, and the basement door slammed closed just before she reached them, seemingly locked as it wouldn't budge no matter how hard she kicked it or threw herself against it. "Shit!" She dug in her pocket for her work radio, the best she could do right now since her purse, and her shoes she now realized, were still up in the break room. "Help! Code 9, please somebody fucking help!"  
  
Both her blood pressure and her fear peaked when her only answer a was static-ridden, raspy voice.  
  
"Ree taa .... Ritaaa," it groaned, almost monotone but somehow desperate too.  
  
"Dios mio." Her free hand found its way to her pounding heart as she screamed into the receiver, her vision blurry from tears and her head light from panic. "Who the hell is this?"  
  
The only answer was a low grinding sound, which she realized with a jolt was the door to the basement opening. There was no one on the other side when she yanked it open, no more sounds of struggling, not even any light. Her heart sank, but she refused to let go of her hope completely. And when, if, she finally had to, she would find the fucker and gut him, with her own two hands if necessary. With a deep, resolute breath she let her hand find the light switch on the wall, bringing the dusty depths of the moldy, cluttered space into uneven illumination, as at least a quarter of the bulbs were shot. This small story branched out in two directions, and Rita found herself standing in the middle, unsure. She could tell that neither Luis or the orderly were likely in either main hall from her position, but there were multiple rooms on each side. If she choose the wrong one, the man could escape the way he had came while she was busy.  
  
Slowly, with her eyes still scanning both halls, she bought the radio back to her mouth, thinking that maybe the reception was somehow better in the basement than the stairwell.  
  
"Ritaaa!"  
  
"Shit." She pulled the radio away from her face as if it might bite her when the voice spoke again, then chocked back a scream when the static and the voice grew in volume and clarity when she held it out to the left, far from her body. Her breaths were ragged, too loud, but as she moved around in a slow circle, her lips curved into unhealthy smile. The radio went cold in every other direction, and when she pointed to the left again she was sure.  
  
"Here. Rita," the voice said, and she had nothing else.  
  
The radio got louder and the static became full of almost-words she couldn't quite make out as she moved further down the hall, until finally it spoke again in front of one door.  
  
"Rita. Here. To me."  
  
Rita nodded, though she wasn't sure the voice would know, and approached the door with as much caution as she was capable of at this point. She turned the knob in small increments, then pushed the door open all at once, ready with the radio in case she needed to hit someone. With a mix of relief and crushing disappointment, she found that this room too was empty. Empty of people anyway. It was full of stacked boxes, most likely old paperwork. Just as she turned to continue her search with renewed anxiety, the voice spoke again. No. A different, more human voice, still a metallic echo, but human and not coming from the radio.  
  
"Mom! Mommy, help me!"  
  
"Luis! Where are you?"  
  
"I'm stuck! It's so dark in here!"  
  
She scanned the room, just about to tear open every box in sight until her eyes caught an air vent on the right wall, about two feet below the ceiling. She pushed and pulled the nearest box until it was under the vent and she could climb up. "Baby?"  
  
"Mom!"  
  
"Hold on, Lucho!" She looked around desperately for anything that might help her unscrew the vent, but there was nothing. Her stubby nails worked to twist the screws out some and then she had to tug hard enough for the vent's metal to cut into her hands but it did come free. She discarded it and reached into the dark space in front of her. "Baby? Can you come to mommy? Are you hurt?"  
  
When there was no answer she reached as far as her arm could go until she felt soft, dusty, frayed fur and pulled it to her. It was the bear her son had been holding in the hall. As she stared, transfixed, into its white eyes they slowly started to pulse an electric purple that reached into her, matching her breathing with those pulses that seemed to cause a type of paralysis. She felt herself falling backwards but never hit the floor. Then she saw the main basement hall again, felt her body moving in an unnatural and blunted way back into the stairwell, felt herself thinking foreign thoughts, her brain running patterns and circuits it had never done before. She wanted to scream, but her influence was minimal, her thoughts stunted because her mind was not her own.  
  
The voice. It was the voice, the same voice. Luis had never been here. Todd was here. It wanted to find Todd, needed Todd. The same thought, same emotion, over and over, in a dangerous, frantic spiral. Todd!  
  
Suddenly, she was smaller, much smaller, lying in a crib with a softly crying toddler, bigger than her, clutching her close. Without looking anywhere but his face, she ... shee- Shmee .... Shmee could see the shadows crawling on the ceiling: giant spiders, scorpions and centipedes in a choreographed dance. Beauty and fear and food. Todd.  
  
Shmee was dashing through the second story halls now, peering at the names and numbers on the doors to the residential suites. Number two-thirteen clicked into place in her mind and she remembered a boy of about eleven squeezing her arm, a bubbly happiness tinged with a hint of worry seeping into her from the gesture, as he walked into the room. There were two beds, and the source of his worry was already occupying the one of the right: the roommate he would have now that he was allowed a lower security level after almost three years of proving to be relatively safe with himself and others. The assistant that had let Todd in stepped in front of him to pry a magazine with a sasquatch on the front from the hands of the other boy, whose fingers tightened until his knuckles turned white before letting go abruptly with a huff.  
  
The assistant stumbled backwards, almost falling into the plastic desk beside the door, revealing the boy to be about Todd's age, pale with amber eyes obscured behind round glasses and ridiculously scythe-shaped black hair. "Now, ah, Dib, you know you're not allowed to read this stuff here, on your father's orders."  
  
"Yeah, yeah. I know." He rolled his eyes with an air of boredom until they drifted over to Todd, then stuck on Shmee. He raised a brow before looking back to Todd's face as the assistant left them together, closing the door behind him. "Hi. We're roommates now, I guess. I'm Dib. I'm in and out of here a lot, so you should have the room to yourself most of the time".  
  
"I'm Todd."  
  
Todd's grip on Shmee intensified at the social contact, but there was a small smile on his lips. Surely someone who looked that much like Harry Potter couldn't be all bad. And if he was, at least he wouldn't be there all the time. Todd sat down on the free bed, looking through the box beside him that contained the personal property that he wasn't allowed to have with him unsupervised until now. A few things had come with him from home when he had checked in, but most were gifts from the Diablos, a few from Johnny and a few from Rian and his daughter, Letta. There were two more boxes with contents much the same and a plastic bag of clothes on the floor. His fingers ran down the spines of a modest stack of books, lingering on a science fiction one that Pepito had given him. Hesitantly, he pulled it out and offered it to Dib.  
  
"You can borrow it while you're here, if you want."  
  
"Thanks." Dib's mouth formed a small smirk as he examined the space ship on the cover. "Hey, Todd. You believe in aliens?"  
  
"Nah." When Dib frowned, still looking over the cover, Todd's lips turned up a little on one side. "I was abducted once, though."  
  
Through the small window in the door, she saw two different boys, one with blond hair and the other with red, flinch as Shmee pounded both hands onto the metal surface, frustration and panic seeping into the repetitive thoughts in her brain. Wrong. Not Todd. The names on the door were wrong. Moved. He must have been moved. Shmee backed up, looking up and down the hall as another assistant gave her a questioning look.  
  
"Todd. Todd Casil. Do you know where he is?"  
  
"Honey," the woman stopped pushing her cart to put one hand on her hip, "I don't know half of these kids by name. They don't pay us enough for that. You missing one?"  
  
"Yes. Missing Todd." Shmee rushed past her, checking more doors on her way down the hall. When she reached the end, she punched the elevator button over and over until the doors opened, letting out an assistant with a small group of boys, back from somewhere else on the DHMI campus. Pushing roughly through them, earning a lizard-like hiss from one boy, she punched the button that read three, then let out a growl when the button turned red instead of yellow. The third floor, which housed higher level patients in single, padded rooms, required a key and Ritta didn't have the security clearance. No. Todd wouldn't, couldn't have gone back there without Shmee. He might not make it there without Shmee, even if things hadn't been nearly as bad after the Scary Neighbor Man had killed the old, corrupt director.  
  
Rita took a deep breath, then another, holding onto the rail behind her, as the fogginess that had started to rise around the voice receded some. She realized with growing terror that she hadn't been breathing since getting into the elevator. Her finger quickly made its way to the one button instead. She had to get to the nurses office on the first floor because something was very wrong: sleep-deprived insanity, most likely. At least she was in the right place for losing her mind, and her boys were safe at home. That thought alone was enough to relax the pace of her racing pulse.  
  
When the doors opened again, she darted out, only to come to a standstill at the bustle of the busiest part of the building during day-time hours. Half of this floor was dedicated to recreation, visitation  and a computer lab where some of the lower level boys got a virtual education, while the other half was composed mostly of counselors' offices and the main nurses' station. She tried to move in that direction, tried to scream when her body didn't respond, then noticed that she was still holding the bear from the vent. The bear and the voice were the same, she realized too late, in the few minutes that she had something resembling clear thought.  
  
The pulsing from before was back, seemingly in response to her attempt at loosening her death-grip on the furry monstrosity. This time she tried to fight, pushing the obtrusive thoughts from her mind again and again, but they only seemed to become more insistent every time, demanding constant vigilance on her part. Suddenly, here legs collapsed from under her and her skull struck the tiled floor hard enough to make her head swim again. And then the voice, Shmee, had control, and he was laughing at her as he broke away from the people who tried to help her up. He turned, ignoring their questions and concerns, and sped in the other direction.  
  
As Shmee passed a half-dozen private visitation rooms, peering inside each one, she saw flashes of Todd hugging a tawny-skinned boy- Pepito, stupidly confident that he was his best friend and not the second coming of damnation.  
  
They broke apart, and Pepito's mother, Rosemary, ruffled Todd's hair. He smiled at her with genuine feeling, though he still wasn't completely comfortable with physical affection at thirteen. Shmee could feel slight tension, physically and emotionally, through the stuffing in Todd's pocket whenever someone offered it. The boy's own family had always held others at a distance, even when they didn't resent their existence. Both the Diablos and the Douglases were so much more healthy and supportive that he sometimes felt so inadequate, like an alien that was still learning human emotion compared to them.  
  
Of course, that the new medication he was on had a general dampening effect on many of his mental and emotional faculties, as a side effect of treating his anxiety and hallucinations, didn't help matters. This was troubling, but Shmee was more concerned with the later part because Todd had been listening to him, hearing him, less lately. There was still a connection, but he could only passively observe most of what Todd did and felt throughout the day, when they were in physical contact. He had always been strongest at night and they could still communicate that way, but Todd took his dreams less seriously now, had been taking his warnings and advice less seriously for years even before that.  
  
"So, guess what, Amigo," Pepito said as he helped his mom unpack a basket full of tuber-wear containers of food onto the table in the middle of the room. He looked to Rosemary, who nodded at him.  
  
"Go ahead, dear, you tell him."  
  
He met Todd's eyes across the table, his own fiery browns shining. "The city's Day of the Dead celebration is next week, and Rian said you could spend the night with us."  
  
"R-really?" Todd smiled again, surprise and slight fear dipped in a thick layer of cautious optimism, his MO as of late.  
  
Truth was, this was really only a minor step. Rian, Todd's counselor, had been taking him out of the DHMI for a little over a year, mostly on day trips, sometimes shared with Rosemary and Pepito, but he had stayed the night with Rian and his daughter a new times. It had started when Rosemary, who was Todd's case worker, had gotten his parents to sign over temporary custody to Rian by threatening to recommend his release as an outpatient. At this point, that would be the procedure for nearly any other kid who had made the kind of progress that Todd had, but it was agreed that his home environment was not conductive to his mental health, much less supportive. So life in the ward continued, but they tried to give him as much freedom and exposure to the outside world as they could manage and thought he could handle.  
  
"That sounds ..."  
  
"Scary?" Some of the excitement fell from Pepito's voice, but his tone was sympathetic.  
  
Todd shook his head. "Awesome. Well, a little scary too, but that's okay."  
  
"Awesome." Pepito beamed.  
  
Shmee shook her head, breaking them free of the memory, then stomped through the game room, scanning the assorted patients lucky enough to have friends and family that cared to come here on the weekends. At the back of the spacious enclosure, he kicked in the door to the TV room, staring hollow-eyed at the two teenagers and three adults within.  
  
A quick surge of images erupted, like oily film over water: Todd on the couch before them, not much older than before, a giant smile engulfing the lower half of his thin face as an older blond girl on his left side dropped a white video game controller onto the second-hand, floral sofa.  
  
"Damn, you're good!" The girl, Rian's daughter, shot a wide-eyed smile across Todd, at another, younger girl who shrugged.  
  
"Yeah, but that game's kinda lame. You got anything else?" She leaned over Todd to dig in the bag at his feet. "Ohhh, 'Obliterate All Earthlings'."  
  
"You can't play that game, Gaz. We're supposed to defend the Earth and its ... lings from the alien menace. Not obliterate them!" Dib's slightly nasal voice came from somewhere behind them.  
  
Todd looked back at him to say something, but the memory was locked on the blond- Letta. She was too still, frozen in an amused huff, surrounded by an increasingly vivid red bleeding in from all sides.  
  
"Hey! What's your problem, lady?"  
  
Letta's face faded and another took its place: a boy with thick, rectangular glasses, a short, stocky frame and hair that was half done up in short, wiry dreads, peering at Shmee like she was the lunatic even if he was the one who happened to be a mental patient.  
  
"We're trying to watch a movie. Do you have something to say or what?"  
  
"Jesus, Caleb, manners," said the woman behind him. "No wonder you weren't allowed visitation last weekend."  
  
"Mama, that wasn't my fault, they- hey!" His feet nearly left the floor when Rita's hand shoot out to grip his shirt collar and pull him closer.  
  
"Where is Letta? Valletta Douglas."  
  
Pushing his glasses back up on his nose, Caleb regained his footing, obviously trying to maintain some distance between them. "I don't know; I haven't seen her around in a while. You checked with her dad?"  
  
Shmee's hold tightened before releasing completely just as Caleb's mother tried to step between them. "Rian."  
  
"Uh, yeah." He spoke again, in a low voice to the others, as Shmee turned to go. "I think she's been 'checking in' with the medicine cabinets."  
  
It didn't take long to find his way back to the familiar wooden door that read 'Dr. Rian Douglas'. The light at the top of it was bright red, meaning that a therapy session was in progress, but that was a fleeting consideration that had barely penetrated Shmee's frazzled consciousness before he stormed in, earning a loud yelp from a young boy that refocused his attention on the psychologist behind the desk he was now facing.  
  
A long, quiet moment passed as both the boy and Rian looked at Rita, waiting for a puzzle piece to fall into place.  
  
"Is there, uh, some kind of emergency? Because, as you can see, I'm with a patient right now."  
  
Shmee licked her lips as he took a few steps forward, realizing by how the boy folded into himself in the faux-leather chair to his right that the way he was moving Rita's body was likely unnatural in a thousand tiny ways, each barely discernible on its own, that projected an unnameable fear into those few who took notice. Rita's cheek muscles tugged, but he did not smile. This wasn't the right scared little boy.  "Todd Casil."  
  
"What about Todd?" The thin lines under Rian's emerald eyes scrunched up and his face went a few shades paler, making the scattering of freckles below stand out more.  
  
"I can't find Todd. Is he ... on level three?"  
  
Rian released a deep breath, but now his dirty blond eyebrows were raised and the shallow lines on his forehead creased as well. "Todd was released almost two months ago." Slowly, he stood and walked around his desk, placing himself between Rita and the chair the child still occupied, his eyes looking her body up and down before meeting hers again with something between clinical suspicion and concern. "Why are you looking for him?"  
  
One of Rita's feet moved back slowly behind her body, then Shmee flung the rest of her around and ran full speed for the open door, only to hit a heavy wall of human flesh: two orderlies side by side, who managed to hang on even though they were both thrown back by the impact of his attempted escape, then scratched and kicked in his subsequent struggle.  
  
"Hold up there, Ms. Fernadez," one of them said. "We got a report about you jerking that little Caleb geek around in front of his family. They said you seemed," his words slowed down as he looked into her dry, blood-shoot eyes, "unhinged."  
  
"Why I ... I'm sorry ... I just, so tried. Home. I need to go home, and it will all, all be just fine." This time he did smile because if he could just get out of here, then maybe he could ... but he didn't know the way to Todd's house. He might be able to remember the address, so if he could get currency .... "My purse! I need to get my purse!" And shoes would probably be a nice touch as well.  
  
Rian frowned. "I'll get someone to call the director, but I think we're going to need a blood test and a mandatory evaluation before you can go."  
  
"Let go!" Shmee pulled on each arm in fast secession, breathing hard and trying to gain slack to little avail. "I said I'm fine!"  
  
"Ms. Ferandez ... Rita, you're right." Placing a hesitant hand on her shoulder, Rian meet her gaze with a softer one of his own. "Everything is going to be fine. I need you to remain calm, alright? Sometimes when people in helping services like us don't take a break for our own emotional needs, taking on other people's problems can get to be a little much. How long have you worked here? Two, three years?" His frown deepened  when she  hung there limply, and he nodded at the bear. "Why do you have that?"  
  
"No!" Bending Rita's arm back to the side of the left guard, Shmee flailed and kicked at Rian when he reached toward it. "Don't touch me!"  
  
Both of his hands rose into the air in surrender, palms out. "I'm not, I just-"  
  
"Hell, I got it, Doc." The orderly snorted as he griped the arm he was already holding with his left arm with his right and pulled it painfully forward for the second orderly to pry the bear loose, ignoring the loud sob that Rita emitted when he did so. "Tell you what. You deal with their brains; we'll deal with the bodies."  
  
"I think you'll find the two are very related," Rian said, his voice stern. "Now if you'd please give it back so I can-"  
  
"No! No." She shook her head as black, mascara-tinted tears painted lines down her cheeks. "Keep that thing away from me! Please, God, it's ... it's evil or something."  
  
"Whatever." The second orderly shrugged, then tossed the bear into a box of junk in the corner. He rolled his eyes. "We'll bury it on holy ground later."  
  
Deep breaths filled Rita's exhausted lungs and each one seemed to bring more clarity. The crazy spiral-like thoughts were gone, but they had left her dizzy, her reality disoriented and her emotional balance off center. She nodded absently as the orderly, Terry, his name-tag read, spoke in a patronizing voice, not caring about the actual words. "I think," she looked to Rian, "I think I will take that evaluation ... and maybe some time off."  
  
Luckily, one of the good things about her job, which was a state job for after all, was that she had good mental health coverage and paid temporary leave if she could prove she needed it for medical reasons.

**Author's Note:**

> -Lucho is a Spanish nickname for Luis.  
> -Rita isn't going to be a major character, though she may show up once or twice more somewhere in part two.


End file.
